One day in June
by Fiamocmyn
Summary: 30 years before the attack on Shiganshina, a young girl named June had an average life inside wall Maria. Too average, in her opinion. To try and escape her family and the monotony of her life as a chicken farmer, she runs off to get a peer over the wall. What happens next plunges her headfirst into the conflict between mankind and the titans.
1. 1- Freedom

_This _was freedom.

Gravity was just a suggestion. Losing was an impossible feat. Fear was a mere memory of the past – and there was nobody to blame for my failures but myself. I was the hunter, the titans the prey, and this was my territory. Humanity's territory.

I felt the green cloak, with the symbol of the heroes, flutter out behind me. The wind blowing it was the only element that dared touch me – earth, fire, water all sunk to the ground in fear. But I flew with the wind.

I felt the textured grip of the blade handles in my palms. By now, my hands were the shape of them- my arms an extension of the blade. I was a weapon, from the armory the human race.

I felt the maneuvering gear shift as I caught sight of a titan. The straps around my leg tightened when I extended it. The gear wrapped around me, tense, like a blanket. And what a blanket may be to a scared kid, the gear was to me.

I let the grapples loose, and for a moment hovered there, the forest and the titan below me – but nothing, not even birds dared fly higher than I. With the absence of the wind, silence took over, seeping into every crevice of the forest, of the world, of the human mind. While I was fighting the only things that existed were me and the enemy. And soon it would just be me.

I felt the earth gain bravery, and the forces of gravity once again tried to wrap myself in their tendrils. I let the arms of the world pull me into the monsters neck. While I was falling, I had nothing to do but fall, no commitments, no worries. That was peace. And this is revenge. I tightened my grip on the blades, and pulled my arms forward, through the disagreeing wind. When the blades hit flesh, I felt them slow. I didn't try to change that – I wanted to let the titan suffer – a quick death was too humane for it. Soon, they lost resistance, and the body of the massive creature fell, followed by a chunk of its nape. I landed, then stood, engulfed by the steam of its corpse, and looked up to the sky.

Did this creature remember what it did to humanity, seventy years ago, or was it too stupid? Either way it was too dead to care now. The forest once again regained silence and soon the rest of the men in my group would catch up to me. All I had to do was avoid titans until then.

Suddenly, I felt something sharp brush against my ear, and I turned, trying to stop whatever had ambushed me. But when I saw everything, I soon forgot about whatever enemy had touched my ear.

I was no longer in a forest. The metallic scent of titan blood had been replaced by the smell of chickens. The silence of the forest replaced by the clucking of hens. And the beautiful sight of a newly dead titan replaced by the sight of a half-cleaned coop, trying to hide behind the eyelashes of my half-asleep eyes.

The shy sun of the morning cast long shadows, and the shadow of a rooster covered my face. It was standing with its foot next to my head, spur rubbing against my ear. Then I remembered – it was the enemy that attacked my ear there. But why was it in a forest? And why did it not run from the titan? In fact, it acted perfectly normal, albeit hungry, even though it just saw a fifteen meter tall monster fall to its death in front of it. I slowly leaned up from the lying position I had been in. My hair had dust and leaves stuck it – but not a trace of titan blood. I stood for a few moments, contemplating that fact, before my eyelids took control of my vision, and I lost track of time.

It was a dream.

My eyes opened wide when I realized where I was. I was in my chicken coop, next to my house. I wasn't a member of the survey core, not a heroic titan killer. I was a kid, and the daughter of a poor chicken farmer, at that. The rooster didn't give me any more time to lament in my status, all it wanted was the food that was just out of its reach on the other side of the door to the coop. I had just fed them – or was that last night? I was too tired to think straight, so I figured I hadn't fed them and tossed the scratch onto the floor, where a horde of large, white fowl swarmed the feed, making a moving, white feathery floor to the coop. While they were occupied, I looked up at the rosy sky.

Why was I asleep in the coop? Did I spend the whole night in there, again? Mom's going to be so angry, I missed dinner, too I guess.

These thoughts flooded my mind, the average everyday thoughts of a person taking up the same thinking space as the hero in my dream did.

I looked at the chickens, stepping on each other in their mad dash to get the most food. Was this how the titans thought about us humans?

"June, you need to get inside, and bring in the eggs." I heard a comforting, yet at the same time rushed voice, coming from the half open door of the small cabin. I grabbed some eggs – too lazy to count them – and stumbled inside, my eyes still partially clouded with sleep. My mom took the eggs from me, and cracked them into a bowl. I knew I should have offered to help, but I would have much rather sit down on that chair next to the table, so I did.

"I wanted to wake you, June, but you looked so peaceful." Two thoughts flashed into my mind – my mom wasn't angry at me, and apparently I get a peaceful look on my face when killing titans in my dreams. "You looked like you were dreaming. What was your dream?" My mom tried to make small talk, probably to keep me from falling back to sleep.

"I killed a titan." I would have said more, but it was early in the morning.

"So you dreamt of being in the survey corps?" I nodded. "We all dream of doing stupid things, don't we? Just last week, I dreamt of sneaking into Luke's bull's pen, and for some reason I had to wash off its horns while trying to not get it to hurt me."

That's all the survey corps was to my mom – a stupid dream? I held back quite a few remarks in my head as I nodded. "I guess we do." I lied to my mom. But honestly, if I could kill even one titan, it would avenge so many lives, maybe even save people in the future. Either way, better than this boring, poor life.

I was going to join the survey corps, and I was going to become that hero.


	2. 2- Hope

"Who's that?" Just as I finished my breakfast of bland eggs and what used to be called bread (now most properly called a rock), which actually tasted better without my mom's excuse for flavoring it, a knock rattled the door, threatening to set it off its hinges. My mom jumped at bit at the noise, then almost immediately collected herself to answer the door. On the other side was a man. The only thing I remember thinking about him was wondering how he kept his shirt so shiny. Memories have bad priorities sometimes, especially in the morning.

"Oh. You're earlier than I expected, sir." I picked up my plate and walked out of the view of the door, so I could listen without being obvious that I was listening. But it _was _obvious that I was eavesdropping because there was no other reason to stand there. Again, mornings.

"I have some guests coming over today. So I decided to come early." The man pulled out a few coins and handed them to my mom. "That would be the right amount for six chickens, right?"

I sighed. For a moment I thought something interesting was about to happen. Like, my mom falling in love with a guy rich enough to wear a shiny shirt. But it was just another guy wanting to buy food. Just another guy who had enough money to eat someone else's chickens.

"June, how about you gather up half a dozen cockerels?" My mom turned to me for a few moments. I almost opened my mouth to protest. The only young roosters we had at butchering age were ones we were planning to keep. We had just spent all of our meager savings to buy that new variety. But I knew it was impossible to protest. This man was rich – probably living within Wall Rose, or maybe even Sina. Even if we could afford to lose a valuable customer, if we offended him, that would be the least of our problems.

I nodded silently, keeping back all those thoughts, and slipped out the back door towards the chicken coop. I closed the door gingerly and walked lightly, attempting to hear any words that managed to escape the house. I always wondered about the people that lived inside the other two walls. They have the power to see the outside world. Why don't they? Those that would turn away the opportunity to see freedom with their own eyes - and refuse it - there was no way we could be of the same race. My mind kept asking questions like these relentlessly while I slowly approached the coop with all the grace of a headless titan.

When I reached the door of the coop, I placed my hand on the latch. The metal was warm from the sun, which made me hesitate for a moment, drawing my hand back. Then I stood there. The chickens were looking at me curiously. A few of them tilted their head sideways. I looked at them from there, deciding which ones we would send away to their death. Was this what the titans used to think about us humans before the walls were built? I shook that thought out of my head. Of course the titans were just mindless creatures, eating whichever human was closest to them. Why was I even thinking about this?

"June, hurry up!" I heard the door open at the same time my mom spoke. I quickly pulled over a small box from next to the coop and opened the small gate, completely forgetting about the hot latch. I grabbed the two cockerels closest to me, not wanting to make my mom wait any longer, and tossed them in the box. Then when I grabbed the other four, I made sure it wasn't any of the pretty red ones. Those birds don't know how lucky they were. Just because they were hatched with a pretty red and black color instead of boring white, they got to survive. I looked back towards the house and saw the man's carriage, complete with beautiful white horses and a driver. Those humans didn't know how lucky they were. Just because they were born in a huge house, inside even huger walls, they got to do anything they wanted.

"Here." I slid the lid onto the box and handed it to my mother. She looked inside it quickly, and took it over to the rich man for approval. Soon, the carriage drove off, so I assumed that the chickens met his expectations.

I walked back to the back of our house, and sat down, back resting against the old, fraying wood. I leaned my head back, my long dark hair falling over my shoulders, and the gentle morning sunlight soaking into my face. After some amount of time, I opened my eyes. The sunlight seemed to catch on my eyelashes, making a momentary glimmer in my eyes. Then my vision rose to the blue sky. The sky was endless. That's what I've heard at least. That no matter the survey corps went, they never saw the base of the sky. I turned my head a bit, and noticed a few clouds in the corner of my vision. Those clouds were free to float over the wall.

"Ugh." I hadn't meant to say that out loud, but there was nobody around to hear it anyway. I leaned down my hair falling back over my face. I slowly raised my hand up to my head, and started to push back my sun-heated hair with it, but ended up just resting my forehead on it. I sat like that for a few moments, before I sighed and dropped my hand, letting it land limply on the dusty ground.

It seemed all I could think about right now were titans and the other side of the wall, ever since Nancy showed me in her newspaper about the survey corps leaving in week. I had been doing everything I could to try and get them off my mind, but it seemed I was failing miserably. I had read the article over and over until Nancy had to take it back. She was happy to let me read it though – anything to show off her son, Jeremy, who just became a team leader in the survey corps. I had begged my mom to let me see them leave, but she insisted that I had to stay here and help with the chicken flock.

Of course, I would just go myself, but without a horse, it could take days to reach the gate. And there were only four horses in the town – two belonging to the mayor, one belonging to Nancy and one belonging to Old Man Luke. Luke's horse was almost as senile as he was, and the mayor didn't let anyone near his two. Nancy on the other hand –

"Shut up, June. You're not going to steal Nancy's horse." I said out loud to myself. Why was I even thinking about this right now? I could just ask to borrow it – I mean, Nancy was a friend of my family.

"Hello?" I jerked my head up. Somebody had walked around to the back of the house. I almost laughed when I saw who it was.

"Well, hello there, Nancy." I stood up, wiping some of the dust off of my skirt. I took a step over and reached out my hand for a handshake.

"Is this a bad time? Your mom wasn't answering the door so-" the petite woman shook my hand, looking worried.

"No, I can take a message if you want. She's probably working in field by the river." I wondered why Nancy wanted to talk to my mom. She had some chickens, but she wasn't looking for more breeding stock or anything. And she was a genius (which is how she managed to bargain her way into getting a filly a couple years ago), so she didn't need to ask my mom about any chicken advice.

"Well, actually, my question is for you."

"Me?" I felt my eyebrows raise in confusion. Nobody ever wanted to talk to me.

"Yeah. You're the only one I can think of that isn't busy right now." I couldn't decide if that was offensive or not, so I decided it wasn't so I didn't have to worry about it. "And, Jeremy left his necklace here. He wears it for good luck. So, I was wondering if you could take it to him, he should be in Shiganshina right now, preparing to leave. You can take my mare to get there, if you need to."

I couldn't believe this. Maybe I was going to have an opportunity to see the survey corps leave. Maybe I should think about stealing things more often, since that seemed to have worked.

I cleared my throat, hoping to not sound too excited.

"I'd be happy to."


End file.
